Not applicable.
This invention relates to racks for cups and glasses that are used in commercial automatic dishwashers.
It is common in the restaurant and food service industry to use automatic dishwashers for cups and glasses which accept a standard dishwasher rack that is approximately 20xe2x80x3xc3x9720xe2x80x3 square (actually 19.72xe2x80x3xc3x9719.72xe2x80x3). Different racks are used with different size compartments to most closely match the diameter of the glasses or cups being washed. Common sizes in the industry are 9 compartment, 16 compartment, 25 compartment, 36 compartment and 49 compartment racks. For tall glasses, extenders having the same number of compartments are stacked on top of the rack, as is well known in the industry.
If a glass is too small for the compartment in which it is placed, damage to the glass can result. This damage is expensive not only in the lost glass, but also in the cost of cleanup and the potential that the broken glass may injure personnel or damage the dishwashing equipment or plumbing.
There are a considerable number of glasses which are too large to fit into the compartments of a smaller compartment rack, but too small to properly fit in the compartments of a larger compartment rack. The solution to date has been to place these glasses in a larger compartment rack and live with the damage. There are not, to the knowledge of applicant, in-between size compartment racks available which would more closely fit these types of glasses.
The invention provides an improved dishwashing rack and extender with a unique configuration of compartments. Specific embodiments of the rack and extender have 12, 20, 30 or 42 compartments all with a standard sized frame. In particular the invention provides an automatic dishwasher rack and extender for holding glasses or cups in an automatic dishwasher of the type having side walls in a rectangular shape, which is square if the side walls are of approximately equal length.
Specifically, the rack includes an open supporting grid spanning the side walls in a lower portion of the rack and an array of compartments above the supporting grid in an upper portion of the rack. The rack has a plurality of adjacent rows of hexagonal compartments, each row including a half hexagonal compartment at one end, with two rows of pentagonal compartments along opposite sides of the rows of hexagonal compartments. Each row of pentagonal compartments includes a half pentagonal compartment at one end.
Similarly, the extender has a plurality of adjacent rows of hexagonal compartments, each row including a half hexagonal compartment at one end, with two rows of pentagonal compartments along opposite sides of the rows of hexagonal compartments. Each row of pentagonal compartments includes a half pentagonal compartment at one end.
In one preferred form, the invention provides a dishwashing rack which spreads 20 compartments over the area of the rack in a relatively uniform and symmetrical pattern, as is required for proper loading of the dishwasher. In order to do so, the invention provides three rows of nested hexagonal compartments, with a half compartment on one end of each row. Bordering the top row and bordering the bottom row of these three hexagonal and half hexagonal compartment rows is a row of pentagonal compartments, which has at one end a half pentagonal compartment. Thus, the rack has five rows, the middle three of which are hexagonal or half hexagonal and the top and bottom rows of which are pentagonal or half pentagonal. The half compartments, whether pentagonal or hexagonal, alternate from end to end from one row to the next. With this configuration, there are five rows, with four glasses fitting into each full compartment in each of the rows for a total of 4 glasses per row which equals 20 glasses per rack. In the preferred embodiments, the number of glasses per rack is varied by varying the number of rows and compartments per row, but retaining the configuration of hexagonal end rows, pentagonal middle rows and half compartments at alternating ends of the rows, to also yield 12, 30 and 42 compartment racks.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the detailed description and drawings.